EU bandh? - Nepali Times

From The Nepali Press
EU bandh?
Editorial in Nagarik, 17 August

FROM ISSUE #516 (20 AUG 2010 - 26 AUG 2010) | TABLE OF CONTENTS

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WRITE TO EDITOR

A dispute between the Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (NEFIN) and its donor, the UK aid agency DFID, has revealed that foreign aid is being used to deprive Nepali citizens of their basic rights. This became apparent when NEFIN enforced a nationwide strike to pressure the Constitutional Committee to expedite the process of writing the constitution. The strike took place despite DFID threatening to withhold funds from NEFIN.

It is unfortunate that organisations that receive foreign aid to enable and promote citizen's rights involve themselves in activities that curtail freedom of movement. Donors should be wary of such cases where rights advocacy and empowerment aid get used for political interests. A huge chunk of aid goes into the pockets of local employees for consultations, junkets, protests, workshops, and seminars. These activists who feed on foreign funds are to be blamed for threatening national integrity.

Finance ministry officials, who are supposed to monitor foreign aid, keep silent as they too get consultancy fees and free trips abroad. As an institution, DFID does not intend to curb rights nor promote individual political interests. Therefore, it is the local employees of the organisation, corrupt government officials, and activist groups that are to be blamed for the misuse and misappropriation of funds.

The government should act to prevent such incidents. Issuing a white paper on received aid and project expenses of organisations should be the first step.

1. samata
Its a commendable job that DFID Head Sarah Sanyahumbi has done; reminding NEFIN that they are supposed to uphold our rights, not trample on them. If all the donors were thinking along these lines, we would probably see better days in aid money utilisation.

Posted on: 20 AUG 2010 | 7:08 PM NST

2. Nirmal
These activists who feed on foreign funds are to be blamed for threatening national integrity.
Threatening national integrity is very common paraphrase of many Wagle Sirs(roght oriented left of Nepal) in Nepal. No matter how dirty their initiative when they tried to promote corrupts, incompetents and losers of elections.
Look for example Oli Sir, the man has lost elections, lost general convention, has been in politics more than my age with nothing tangible and lately did everything to block democratic process but he reigned in their media as a saviour(of course saviour of people like Wagle sirs). And all that because Oli sir entertains his staffs with some typical nepali jokes and quotes. Aiiiiii Wagle Sir and your likes make me vomit.........I don't know who feed all this but Wagle sir can be sure that his love to this gaijatra is not going to last long. The time puts everyone into his deserved place Wagle Sir.

Posted on: 21 AUG 2010 | 5:17 PM NST